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| Dick Lyon Mayor of Oceanside 1923 - 2017 |
It doesn't get any better than This!
These were the words Dick Lyon said to
me when he was interviewing me for the vacant Arts Commissioner
position for the City of Oceanside. He was standing at a lectern in
front of his office window looking out over the Pacific Ocean. This
is my desk he told me “I hate to sit down when I can stand have the
pleasure of this View.
This was in 1992. I was only a year's
resident in the City of Oceanside when one morning there was in the
local paper an announcement of a vacancy for the Arts Commission. I
said to my husband Robert, “do you think I should apply for this
position?” He said yes, and that's why I was now standing in the
Mayor's office talking about Art.
I did not know him well, but he was a
Great Man of many interests and abilities. His was a world view of
the human condition, and this understanding of how humans related to
each other was infused by his travels in the military and the many
conflicts in which he fought for our Country. He told me that one of
the bridges to the appreciation of other cultures was through the
Arts, and so we had a common ground of understanding of one way to
serve Oceanside.
Many a time on the way to my studio in
Artists Alley as I was driving in my car, I could see Dick Lyon
bicycling on the pathway next to 76...peddling away and waving to all
as we went by. What a guy! We all looked up to him and knew that here
was an exceptional man we had the privilege to call Mayor.
He was Mayor when I went before the
City Council one fine day and asked that the Alley across from City
Hall be designated Artists Alley. The case was made that my first
studio could be a catalyst and this could be one day a venue
patterned after the Gas Lamp district in San Diego. A banner was
placed above the Alley proclaiming to all that here was something
new. Something to replace the rampant decadence of the underside of
Oceanside and bring a new force to our City which had never before
had the Visual Arts as an element of Community. This force was the energy which combined with OCAF brought the Oceanside Museum of Art into being which changed the face of the City.
The Artists Alley Artists were the seed
planters for all that followed and today there is energy, art
murals, a flower shope and The beautiful Muramid Mural Museum. The
trees are lighted at night, and music wafts though the air on the
First Friday for the Four Seasons Art Walks...”It doesn't get any
better than this...”
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| Dick Lyon |
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